WARNING: This review will be very spoilery. If you haven't played or finished Arkham Knight and you want to experience the story all on your own, you might want to read this later.

The Batman: Arkham games were two of the best experiences of the last console generation. You could argue that either one of them are the best Batman game ever made. So it was with no hesitation that I picked up Rocksteady's finale to their Arkham trilogy, and the first Batman game on current generation consoles. I had no reason to doubt it would be anything but spectacular, and I had already posited that it was one of the few titles coming out this year that could potentially dethrone Ori and the Blind Forest from its Game of the Year throne.

Riddle me this: how do you ruin a great franchise? By adding an unnecessary driving element and forcing it down the player's throat.

Rocksteady already nailed Batman's combat prowess in their previous games, as well as his predatory instincts. Clinging to the shadows and rafters, taking out armed thugs systematically and using your brains as well as your brawn was both tense and extremely satisfying. Using all your Bat-gadgetry to overcome obstacles and solve puzzles was equally enjoyable. The Arkham games were like playing an adult version of Batman dress-up, giving us all a taste of what it might feel like to be the Dark Knight.

With the gameplay elements solidly in place, the next logical step seemed to be to make a bigger, better Gotham to explore. Rocksteady have certainly done that. With three large islands to explore, Gotham's neon-soaked streets are as awesome to explore as ever. Soaring over the city, cape outstretched, grappling between skyscrapers is thrilling. The problems start once you get on the ground.

In an effort to expand upon the gameplay of previous titles, Rocksteady has finally introduced Batman's greatest weapon - the Batmobile. Looking like a cross between Christopher Nolan's tank-like Tumbler and Tim Burton's sleeker sports car, the Arkham Batmobile is a force to be reckoned with...if you don't mind spending half the game inside its cockpit.

Almost immediately the game begins with a tutorial on Batmobile basics. It will take a while to get used to the slippery driving controls, and it doesn't help that the default control scheme is downright idiotic, assigning the brake/reverse control to a face button instead of the left trigger, as just about every driving game has since the advent of shoulder buttons. The Batmobile is fast and Rocksteady has done a good job of making it so that little can impede its progress. It will crash through solid concrete and metal gates as if they were paper, and miraculously, they'll be rebuilt in a few minutes. Gotham must have the best civil engineers in the world, though I can't help but wonder how much property damage Batman does to the city.

Unfortunately, with that speed comes finicky controls. Sometimes it feels like the streets are covered in ice, which is then covered in grease, and the car's wheels are coated in hot, melted butter. Other times, the slightest twitch on the analog stick will send you swerving into one of the few solid objects you can't bust through - most often in the middle of one of the game's chase sequences when you can't afford it. With enough speed, the Batmobile can even defy gravity and race alongside walls, or even upside down, but more than half the time I would end up on an odd angle and it would just fall from the ceiling of a tunnel.

The worst part is that Rocksteady shoehorned the Batmobile's necessity into every single element of the game. There are numerous overly long battles against unmanned drones, where the Batmobile switches into a tank that can strafe side to side and fire rockets and machine guns. The first few are minimally fun, but by the 20th battle (and that's not an exaggeration), it's an exercise in pure tedium. Even most of the boss battles are the Batmobile versus an army of unmanned tank drones. Did Oprah Winfrey come through Gotham and give everyone a tank? Why does EVERYONE have them? And how does it not kill people when it crashes into them at 100 MPH? Even if it discharges a paralyzing electric shock on impact (as it does in the game), I'd think smashing into a human being at that speed would turn them into jelly.

There is puzzle solving involving the Batmobile, although admittedly these aren't always bad. Some of them are clever and require you to use it's remote control capabilities to do one thing while Batman does another outside of the vehicle. But again I'm left to wonder why the villains designed everything around Batman's car, and why they didn't think to do so in the previous games when it wasn't at his disposal.

There is stealth combat involving the Batmobile where you have to sneak up behind a series of tanks in order to get a clear shot. There are Batmobile races set up by the Riddler, some of which are so difficult you may need a new controller. There is even PLATFORMING with the Batmobile. It's absolutely ridiculous, and almost none of it is enjoyable, especially when compared to the rest of the game. I've never seen a single addition so completely ruin my enjoyment of a franchise as the goddamn Batmobile.

When you're not forced to use it, the game still shines. Batman has a few new combat and stealth maneuvers, including the multi-fear takedowns which allow you to knock out several enemies in quick succession if you can reach them without being detected - perfect for groups of gun-toting thugs. Some of the other 200-plus Riddler puzzles are fun to figure out, and a good portion of the side missions are entertaining as well. Strangely, however, the side missions aren't entirely optional. If you even want to see credits roll, you have to complete all but the Riddler missions - another odd design choice I don't care for.

As for the main story, it's somewhat predictable, but definitely the highlight of the game. The identity of the mysterious Arkham Knight is so obvious for anyone with even a modicum of Batman knowledge I was able to correctly deduce it before the game even came out. Even with that caveat, the story still carried me through the often lackluster gameplay (e.g. - all the Batmobile segments), and there was one twist that was downright brilliant.

Anyone who has beaten Arkham City should know that the Joker, Batman's greatest nemesis, died at the end of that game. However, anyone who has ever read a comic book knows that nobody ever stays dead. As I scoured the city, I overhead thugs talking about the Joker, wondering if he was really dead and I was certain I hadn't seen the last of him. I was waiting for the inevitable reveal, and I got it, but it was not at all what I expected.

Yes, Mark Hamill returns to reprise his role as the Joker, but this time he's inside Batman's head. Arkham City players will recall that he injected some of his own tainted blood into Batman, and that blood is now coursing through his veins, slowly turning him into the Joker. It's implausible, I know, but it's a comic book game after all, and it's a great twist on the old "villain isn't really dead" trope. The Joker is physically dead, his body cremated by Commissioner Gordon, but his psychosis finds its way into Batman and a handful of others who were infected with his blood, which he had shipped to Gotham hospitals in the last game. Each and every time Joker appeared on screen, whether crawling through an air duct or sitting casually on the steps of a building I had just exited, I got excited to listen to Hamill deliver more twisted lines. This is the darkest, most evil the Joker has ever been, and he's not even really there. It works to illustrate just how dark Batman's own psyche is, how he has to work to restrain his baser instincts and violent urges. Batman's refusal to kill is the thin red line that separates him from the Joker, and it's a constant struggle to resist those urges.

There are a number of gripping flashback sequences to events from Batman comic lore as well. The Joker arrives in disguise and shoots Barbara Gordon through the spine, crippling her for life in a flashback to the famed Killing Joke one-shot. There's a hammy reference to The Long Halloween story arc. There are several flashbacks to the Joker torturing, and eventually murdering Jason Todd, the second Robin (who was, of course, eventually resurrected in the comics) - a haunting reminder of Batman's greatest failures.

The side quests are generally combat-oriented, and many are centered around the Arkham Knight's militia occupying Gotham. Defusing bombs results in more god-forsaken tank battles, dismantling roadblocks with various thugs and turrets to allow easier access the the various islands, and destroying surveillance towers are all pretty standard stuff. You'll also have to rescue some kidnapped firefighters, track Penguin's black market gun-runners to their hideouts and destroy their ordinance, prevent second-rate villain Firefly from burning down Gotham's fire stations (in one of the few references to Arkham Origins), and most interestingly, capture and cure Man-Bat by listening for his screeches as he flies over the city.

For every great moment there are two or three forced Batmobile segments that just drag the entire experience down. The tagline of the game is "Be The Batman," but too often it feels like you're the Batmobile and perhaps the game should be called Arkham Knight Rider. It doesn't feel like a natural extension of Batman's gadgets, and it relegates several others to obscurity. I think I used the line launcher once in the entire game, and the batclaw was relegated to snapping up a few out-of-the-way Riddler trophies. Some of his new items are great fun to use, like the voice synthesizer which can trick enemies into obeying orders to easily lure them into a trap, but the Batmobile is so prevalent it overshadows everything else. Almost every showdown with a major villain involves the car in some way.

But enough about that, let's focus on the technical aspects of Arkham Knight - and I don't mean Batman's gear. If there's anything I have no complaints about, it's the graphics and sound. Arkham Knight is an absolutely gorgeous game. The breadth of the city, congested with buildings and flooded with lights, is astounding and there's hardly a hint of slowdown. Rain falls and slides realistically down Batman's cape and cowl. Mud and grime cakes the Batmobile and washes off over time. There isn't a hint of jagged edges on the character models, except where they should be (like Batman's pointy ears). This could very well be the best looking game we've seen on consoles yet. The level of texture detail is staggering.

I can't forget to mention the score, which includes elements of both Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer's work on Burton and Nolan's Batman films, as well as original orchestrated pieces that fit perfectly.

The controls can sometimes be a little fidgety. Many of the buttons have been remapped, so even vets will need an adjustment period, and the gadget menu isn't quite as user-friendly to me since it requires you to go into a menu now instead of being able to switch on the fly in-game. Occasionally you'll select an item only to have Batman unexpectedly dive off a ledge when you exit the menu as well.

Ultimately, I found myself disappointed with Arkham Knight. It has arguably the best story of the bunch, but the horrible and all too frequent Batmobile sequences break up the pacing. Nobody has ever said, "you know what would make Batman better? If he drove a tank and blew up other tanks," and I can't believe it never came up in playtesting that it simply wasn't that much fun to do. The moments outside of the car are as fantastic as ever, but being forced into using it so much goes against the open-world feel of the previous games. Making the side missions semi-optional is also a puzzling decision. If this truly is Rocksteady's last Batman game, it's still a worthy effort, but it falls short of the lofty expectations I had and the previous entries in the franchise.

Batman: Arkham Knight was completed on a PlayStation 4 with no cheats.

July 03, 2015

The importance of The Legend of Zelda simply cannot be overstated. In a time when video games were mindless entertainment trying to beat high scores, or sidescrolling run and jump platformers at best, Zelda brought an almost personal computer level of complexity to console gaming. It was the first game to feature a battery backup to save the player's progress. It didn't hold your hold or tell you where to go next - that was up to you to discover. For its time, the overworld map seemed daunting and enormous. Each of its nine maze-like dungeons contained unique challenges and secrets. Players spent hours bombing every wall looking for hidden doors. Heck, it even featured arguably the first mini-game with the rudimentary gambling game.

Yes, The Legend of Zelda is a classic in every sense of the word. It is to video games what the addition of sound was to motion pictures - a groundbreaking, bold step towards making their respective mediums more than simple entertainment.

Few classics have aged as gracefully as Zelda. Its graphics may be pretty basic, but they've lost none of their charm. Forests, deserts, mountains, lakes and rivers, and even a graveyard all occupy the overworld map, and you're free to move between them as you see fit. There was a sense of discovery in each screen, and even today I'm amazed by some of the clever secrets they hold.

Despite having only three music tracks - one of which is only heard during the final dungeon - the iconic music is as catchy and spirited as ever. It instill a sense of adventure, and one of foreboding in the dungeons. Both tracks are short and loop continuously, yet somehow they never become tiresome. I played through the game today in a single sitting, and never once found the music monotonous. It's occasionally broken up by fanfare, such as the instantly recognizable chime that plays when a secret is uncovered that the series still uses to this day, and the sound of your fully charged sword soaring across the screen is still one of my all-time favorite gaming sound effects.

The Legend of Zelda was one of the first games I know of that featured a New Game+ mode. With rearranged dungeons and tougher enemies, the second quest is actually worth playing and adds replay value to a game that was already massive for its time. I can beat it in a few hours now, but in my childhood it took an entire summer, and that was just for the first quest.

It's almost unfair to review Zelda at this point, since we've had nearly 30 years to romanticize it. I'm sure some of the cynical professional critics can find things to nitpick, but I truly cannot think of one. Nintendo managed to improve upon the formula, but for its time, the original Legend of Zelda was about as perfect as video games could be made.

I’m of the opinion that MAME is one of the most wonderful programs ever created. I know people decry it as piracy, but as someone who grew up plunking quarters (or faux-gold tokens I paid real money for) into arcade machines, I feel it’s justified. Many of the games MAME emulates can’t be found even in the few arcades that are still operational, and most of us have put enough money into the more popular machines that we could have bought a cartridge version of it many times over. I shudder to think of how many dollars I have sunk into various machines with the word “Pac” in the title.

It’s also wonderful because if not for MAME, I would have wasted 17 quarters on 64th Street: A Detective Story, a 1991 beat ‘em up from Jaleco that is the very definition of craptacular.

First, the good. 64th Street has a unique 1920s setting, even though the game’s graphics don’t necessarily reflect that. Players can choose between Rick, the middle-aged mustachioed private detective that is totally not Mike Haggar from Final Fight, or Allen, hot-headed young reformed criminal in a flamboyant pink and blue outfit that is totally not Cody from Final Fight. Rick is the slower, but more powerful combatant and Allen is faster but utterly useless. They’ll beat up a variety of thugs who are totally not ripoffs of Final Fight enemies in an attempt to solve a kidnapping case. I’m not sure how the punching correlates with their investigation, since they never seem to interrogate anyone they beat up, but they must be getting results if their agency is hired to track down a rich man’s kidnapped daughter.

Now it’s time for the bad, which is everything else. 64th Street is an abominable game, and the only real joy I got from playing it was listening to Rick shout “DURR!” over and over when he throws enemies. The control is slow and clunky. Like most beat ‘em ups, pressing the attack and jump buttons together is supposed to trigger a special attack, but I could never get it to work reliably. Sometimes Rick (because I played Allen only once, died almost instantly, then never used him again) would perform a back attack instead, and others he’d roll into his special on the tail end of a combo. Still other times I could perform a flaming punch that seemed to be activated by pressing back-toward and attack, but again, it never worked consistently. I ended up just throwing most enemies, just to hear him shout “DURR!” some more.

The graphics are OK. The backgrounds are mostly bland and forgettable archetypal settings for the genre – a warehouse, a robot factory, a boat. Everything has that early 90s VGA look to it, like when a couple of friends made their own game with sprites hand-drawn in MS Paint. Enemies are mostly similar to other, better games as well. There is also a fat enemy who looks like he has a Hitler mustache. In addition to Allen’s gaudy outfit, Rick wears insanely bright orange pants. Were those ever in style?

Animation is stilted and downright terrible, with some characters having only two or three frames per action. To make matters worse, the collision detection is just as bad. Enemies, particularly the bosses, will be able to hit you from what appears to be a completely different plane. You can occasionally use this to your advantage as well, but the hitboxes just seem absolutely huge and the cheap bosses will inevitably get you into an inescapable corner numerous times. This is especially bad in the game’s penultimate level, which is the typical boss rush level found in most beat ‘em ups. Almost half of the 17 credits I used to beat this turd were spent on this level after bosses trapped me in a corner and continuously used their special attack to whittle my lifebar down to nothing.

There are only two weapons you can use to even the odds – a lead pipe and a wrench. In Allen’s hands, the wrench is useless and doesn’t even knock enemies down. Combined with its short range, it’s not very effective in Rick’s hands either, but at least it gives him some breathing room if he connects. There are also food items that will restore some life, but the amount given is usually so minute it’s pointless to even grab them. Finally, there are several collectible items that increase your score, but since there’s no way to earn an extra life, these are also more or less pointless. I guess in a real arcade setting people could see your high scores, but I struggle to imagine anyone would want to pay enough real money to beat a high score, let alone the whole game. Point items include a book, a pen, a necklace, and a cat. Yes, a cat. It’s not like a jeweled cat or anything – it’s a real cat. It even blinks. There are apparently cats hidden in the walls all over the city.

Just about the only remarkable feature of the game is how throwing enemies into the background results in deformation. Walls will dent, doors will splinter, windows will shatter, and cats will come flying out for you to pick up. It doesn’t seem to do anything, other than reveal some hidden items, but it’s a nice graphical touch in an otherwise unremarkable game.

The sound is just as mediocre as the graphics. The music is largely terrible, and certainly not up to the level of Streets of Rage, Final Fight, or even Double Dragon. There are only a handful of voices – including Rick’s “DURR!” – and the sampled sound effects seem way too loud. The sound of shattering glass will shatter your eardrums, although I suppose in an arcade setting it might be drowned out a bit.

Every facet of this game screams “cheap cash-in,” right down to the last stage being called “Last Stage.” Right there on screen. They couldn’t even think of a more exciting name for the climactic showdown against an evil guy wielding a pool cue and his two robot bodyguards. It looks and feels like a game where the minimum amount of effort required to make it playable is all Jaleco were willing to invest. I’m kind of ashamed I even spent the time to finish it, and I have to believe I’m one of a very small group of people who can claim that.

64th Street: A Detective Story was completed on a PC via MAME with no cheats.

June 29, 2015

If there was one thing Sega excelled at in their prime, it was making sequels that eclipsed their predecessors in almost every way. Streets of Rage 2 is a prime example of what a sequel should be – a game that improves upon the original formula, but doesn’t break what already worked. It’s bigger, louder, faster, and better, and for my money, the best beat ‘em up ever made to this very day.

In some ways, Streets of Rage 2 feels like a reboot. Many of the stages are very similar in theme. There’s neon-lit city streets, a beachfront, a cruise ship of some kind (though this time you’re inside, not on the deck), another factory, and the obligatory elevator level. New stages include a large amusement park, complete with Bare Knuckle arcade machines (the series’ Japanese name), a baseball stadium, and a highway bridge. The levels are once again chock full of gorgeous detail. A castle in the background of the amusement park looks suspiciously like it’s from Disneyworld, the edges of billboards light illuminate even though you can’t see the front), and lights on the bridge swing with the impact of bodies hitting the ground as you pound thugs into submission.

Everything about the graphics looks beefier and more vibrant. The character sprites are more than twice as large, offering not only greater detail, but superior animation. Enemies also received major upgrades and were completely redrawn, staying true to their original designs.

The sound is also top-notch. Yuzo Koshiro returns to provide more great dance tunes, but this time he also switches things up a bit and incorporates elements of jazz, funk, and glitch. The latter tracks are easily the weakest, as they lack the catchy melodies that made the first game's soundtrack so memorable, but the frenetic pace and driving beats still fit the on-screen action well. Several old tunes have received remixes, including the boss fight and character select screen themes. Overall, I don't think the soundtrack is quite as solid as the first Streets of Rage, but the standout tracks are truly superb and worthy of listens even outside of the game.

Sound effects are crisp and mostly clear. The voices still sound a bit muffled and crackly, but punches, kicks, and thuds are all satisfying as you dish out punishment. Each character has been given a few new voice samples to accompany their new moves as well.

Speaking of moves and characters, Streets of Rage 2 features four playable characters. Axel and Blaze return from the first game, but since the game's meager plot revolves around Adam's kidnapping, he is sadly unplayable. In his place is his kid brother, Skate, who - you guessed it- cruises around on rollerskates. Skate is extremely fast, but also quite weak. Rounding out the cast is Sega's answer to Final Fight's Mike Haggar, Max Thunder, a professional wrestler who can't jump very high or vault over opponents, but whose attacks to massive damage.

Each of the four characters has their strengths and weaknesses, and they all feel distinctly different. Having beaten the game several times with Axel, I chose to play as Blaze for this playthrough and I was instantly struck by how much less coverage her jumps do. Instead, I found myself utilizing her speed and her outstanding back attack to keep the enemies at bay.

Streets of Rage already had a bevy of moves, but the developers added even more this time around. You can't call for police backup this time out, but each character has been given three new special moves in exchange. Pressing forward twice and the attack button causes each character to do a rush move that can inflict lots of hurt on enemies. Axel's grand upper, which sees him scrape his fist along the ground in a grandiose uppercut move, is easily the most useful move in the entire game, while Blaze's front flip works great as an anti-air maneuver against bosses.

Pressing the A button while stationary performs a spinning move, which is great for escaping enemy combos, while pressing forward+A unleashes a different special attack - both at the expense of a small chunk of life. This adds another layer of strategy to the game, since it's often worth sacrificing that chunk rather than taking multiple hits from an enemy.

As in the original game, you can also pick up weapons that thugs will carry into battle. Several have been removed, namely the bottle, pepper spray, and baseball bat, but in their place are kunai, grenades, and the katana, which is devastating and a welcome replacement. Characters even handle the knives differently now, with Blaze taking two swipes instead of a single thrust.

Boss battles are more balanced this time around as well. You can still use the delayed punch trick to whittle down an enemy's health until they drop, but fighting fair and square is more skillful and less cheap than the original game. It's just a shame they reuse several bosses two or more times, albeit with a slightly different color palette and a new name slapped on their lifebar. Yes, that's right, unlike the original game, every enemy has their own life bar.

Streets of Rage 2 is the quintessential beat 'em up. It takes everything that made the original game so spectacular and amps it up to 11. The gameplay is faster, the animation is better, the character sprites and bigger and more detailed, the stages are more diverse, the soundtrack is awesome, there are more moves, new characters, new enemies... This game has it all. It's phenomenal whether you're going it alone or with a buddy, and even after beating it dozens of times over the years, I still come back to it for complete playthroughs with regularity. As much as I miss the beat 'em up genre in today's gaming world, I guess there isn't much point since Sega reached the pinnacle in 1993.

Streets of Rage 2 was completed on a real Sega Genesis with no cheats.

I confess I'm not a big fan of post-launch downloadable content, or DLC. While additional content is certainly not unwelcome, it often feels too much like milking a fanbase for content that should have been in the game in the first place. Bioshock Infinite's Burial at Sea is the rare piece of DLC that bucks this trend by offering an experience different from the core game, and with Irrational's creative director Ken Levine again at the helm, you know you're in for a good story with plenty of surprises in store.

It's difficult to review Burial at Sea without spoiling the endings of both Infinite, and even the original Bioshock. That said, if you haven't played both games yet, shame on you because they're two of the most mindblowing gaming experiences of the last console generation.

Episode One opens with Booker DeWitt in his office, much like Infinite, except this time he is being visited by Elizabeth Comstock, this time in a femme fatale role. Elizabeth brings information on the whereabouts of a missing child in Rapture, the underwater would-be metropolis from the original game. In a city that "values children, not childhood," a single missing child isn't strange, but Booker has an attachment to this one for reasons of his own.

You'll play as Booker with Elizabeth as your helpful AI-controlled sidekick in this short adventure that does little more than set up its far meatier successor. The core gameplay experience of Bioshock Infinite hasn't been changed for Episode One. Elizabeth still finds helpful items and tosses them to you in the heat of battle, and you take out enemies using both weapons and plasmids, the genetic weapons from the original. The only major difference is the setting returns to industrialist Andrew Ryan's underwater utopia, and this time it's largely before the fall.

Seeing Rapture in all of its splendor is just as eye-popping as seeing it for the first time in 2009's Bioshock. You'll eventually discover that its pretty facade is starting to crack and you'll see elements of the Rapture you're used to by the end, but the rather slow beginning that consists of little more than following Elizabeth is saved by the fascinating city.

A hallmark of the Bioshock universe is that its worlds are so enthralling you'll want to explore every nook and cranny. It's not even about finding items or hidden audio logs that delve into the ugliness festering beneath the surface. For me, Rapture is as much a character as Booker or Elizabeth themselves, and I want to see every neon sign, listen to every inhabitant's conversation, and open every available door.

Episode One barely lasts three hours, even with as much exploration as you can cram into it, but it starts to get very interesting by its conclusion. Familiar characters from both universes collide, including the eccentric and downright insane artist Sander Cohen and the Lutece twins. Episode Two, however, is where the real value of the DLC lies, and features the return of an even more familiar character - Atlas.

Whereas Episode One was little more than Booker in Rapture, Episode Two gives Elizabeth a chance to shine as the playable protagonist. Elizabeth is no war hero, unlike Booker, so gameplay has changed significantly, focusing far more on stealth and cunning than an outright assault. Though she has use of the skyhook from Infinite (called the "air grabber" here), Elizabeth can't drop on unsuspecting enemies and she's far from a walking arsenal. Instead, you'll find a crossbow outfitted with tranquilizer darts is your best chance of survival against Rapture's crazed Splicers.

Though it's a far cry from Irrational's groundbreaking Thief, the stealthy gameplay is handled very well and is extremely forgiving. Elizabeth can't upgrade her health, and she lacks the recharging shield Booker has, so she can barely take any damage which forces you to play smarter. Each weapon carries a very limited amount of ammunition as well, though you can buy more from the Circus of Values vending machines and it's easy to scavenge more off of dead enemies.

Episode Two's greatest strength is its story. An early revelation, that I dare not spoil, leaves Elizabeth without her powers, but not without her humanity. She decides to continue the rescue operation for Booker's lost little girl, Sally, and enters into a shaky alliance with the conniving Atlas that will give him the tools he needs to wrench Rapture from Andrew Ryan's grasp. Without giving too much away, Burial at Sea does a fantastic job of tying the Bioshock worlds of Columbia and Rapture together, and the ending was extremely gratifying.

Rapture has never looked better either. Running on the updated engine of Infinite, the world is even more lush and sometimes morbid as ever. Countless little details are scattered about that give the city a truly lived-in feeling.

The story, and the world itself, are brought to life further by the absolutely exceptional vocal performances from Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper, not to mention the supporting cast. Draper is so spectacular, especially in the final moments of Episode Two where emotions run high, that it's a shame video game performances aren't nominated for Academy Awards.

The music is once again a mixture of haunting minimalistic orchestral arrangements, and licensed tunes from the early 1900s, including "Midnight, The Stars and You", a 1934 song by Al Bowlly that was used during the credits of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

It's hard to say much more about Burial at Sea, except that it's well worth your money if you love the Bioshock universe as much as I do. I'm actually glad I waited so long to play it. With no new game on the horizon (as far as we know), it scratched my itch to return to one of the most creative and fantastic worlds ever made in any medium. Ken Levine's impeccable writing is as enthralling as ever, and the tech that drives the game still looks phenomenal. As much as I loved Columbia in Bioshock Infinite, it was wonderful to return to Rapture. After all, there's no place like home.

Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea was completed on a PC with no cheats.

June 20, 2015

In my review of American McGee's Alice I lamented the fact that the game did not hold up to my fond recollections of it. Clive Barker's Undying, also released under EA's EA Games imprint, is the exact opposite. As far as story-driven first-person shooters go, Undying is among the very best the genre has to offer, even more than a decade after its release, and a forgotten gem.

With such a recognizable game attached to the project, expectations for Undying were high when I first purchased the game upon release. Clive Barker is a legend in his field - right up there with names like Steven King and even H.P. Lovecraft. Few minds are capable of articulating horror so well that it both repulses and compels you to continue reading or watching. How much of Undying was truly written by Barker remains a mystery, but the quality of the writing throughout is first-rate. Undying weaves an exceptional tale of horror, and backs it up with exciting, challenging, riveting gameplay.

The tale opens as Patrick Galloway returns to the home of an old war buddy, Jeremiah Covenant, who has fallen gravely ill and summoned his friend to investigate matters of the supernatural. Patrick is indebted to Jeremiah, who saved him from a shaman during the war, and now wears the shaman's stone around his neck as a souvenir of his near-death experience.

Exploring the grounds of the gigantic and lavish Covenant mansion will reveal many secrets about the family's dark past. Since his encounter with mysticism, Patrick himself has been blessed, or cursed, with magical gifts himself, including the ability to see past events. Undying strikes a careful balance between combat and exploration, with the latter being remarkable for just how engaging it is.

The levels are broken up by brief loading screens and suffer from severe locked door syndrome that keep you on a very narrow path to your next objective, with only minor opportunities to trod off the beaten path, but you won't mind because there's so much mystery to uncover. The atmosphere is thick with dread, even playing it now, and the fear of a surprise enemy encounter keeps you on edge, especially early on when supplies are limited.

As you explore the manor and surrounding areas, you'll find an array of weapons and magic spells. Part of what makes Undying so unique, and arguably innovative, is how you use these in tandem. Nearly a decade before Bioshock's similar combat system, Undying allowed the player to wield both magic in one hand and a weapon in the other at the same time. You have a wide variety of options in combat, and a radial select menu allows quick access to your favorite weapon and spell combinations, almost all of which are extremely useful and viable options. Only Dispel is rarely used due to its ineffectiveness in combat.

For example, the haste spell gives Patrick a burst of speed, making it easier to dodge enemy attacks and get behind them for a melee attack. Or, if you prefer, you could run away and take them out from a distance with your pistol. Perhaps you prefer the head-on approach, in which case the Shield spell and the shotgun may be your favorite combo. There's also the Tibetan war cannon, which can be charged to fire a projective that not only slows enemies down, but does impressive damage. You can supplement the slower weapons with bursts of Ectoplasm in a pinch, or later the incredibly powerful Skull Storm spell. It's up to you, and you may find yourself mixing and matching a lot depending on what enemies you face.

You'll also find journals and diary pages that flesh out the game's story. Most of the time, these collectibles in games are the type of thing I pick up and never bother to read, but they are so exceptionally well-written that I was transfixed by the Covenant family's secrets.

There is also some light puzzle solving, though most of it is of the find-a-switch variety. Most impressively, there is a fairly significant amount of first-person platforming, and it's all fantastic. Apart from occasionally getting hung up on scenery, you should have no problems making jumps. The game runs at a breakneck pace, but feels smooth and responsive throughout, limiting player frustration to an absolute minimum. For a genre that has always struggled with jumping controls, Undying should be commended, especially for a 2001 game.

Undying looks sufficiently creepy, and has aged fairly well thanks to the powerful Unreal engine it runs on. The nature of the supernatural enemies means their relatively low polygon count models still look pretty cool, especially the monstrous Howlers that frequently impede your progress. The manor looks great, for the most part, though some rooms look a little too large and somewhat empty as a result. Naturally, textures look notably blurrier now than we would have noticed back then, but there's still plenty of small details that bring the world to life, such as the way curtains flutter in the breeze or mirrors that reflect the gameworld around them. The lighting is spectacular too, with dark shadowy corridors and corners that will give you pause before you charge into them.

You're not strictly limited to the mansion, however. Your quest to unravel the mystery of the cursed Covenant family and its depraved children will take you through rolling green hills, the family mausoleum, a secluded cabin, an ancient civilization, and even another dimension called Oneiros, whose crimson-hued sky and islands of stone floating on thin air are home to some of the most memorable moments of the game.

The sound is equally awesome, apart from some occasionally hokey voice acting. Some of the Covenant siblings sound better than others, but if there's one standout, it's Ambrose. Voiced by none other than Clive Barker himself, the author's gravelly voice is absolutely perfect for the remorseless black sheep of the family, and my only gripe is that his role in the events is all too short.

Sound effects are universally excellent as well. It's obvious as much care and attention to detail went into the sound design as the story and the graphics. Footsteps change depending on the surface you're on. Weapons sound great, and little touches like the way the dragon-shaped Tibetan War Cannon growls add to the immersion. Doors creaking, creatures howling in the distance, and eerie chants will make your skin crawl. The ambient music blends right in, setting the mood for every situation. Undying is as much a pleasure to listen to as it is to look at or play.

Sadly, the game's sales were not as impressive as the rest of the package. A PlayStation 2 port was canceled, and any hope for a sequel was quickly shattered, leaving Undying the lone game in what could have, and should have been a great franchise. Clive Barker would later return to the realm of video games with Jericho, a third-person squad based shooter that was also praised for its story, but criticized harshly for its gameplay. It's a damn shame that Undying will likely never see a sequel. I yearn for more adventures into the occult with Patrick Galloway, but it's a dream that will probably remain unfulfilled. Undying's linear structure may turn a few people off, but anyone looking for a great horror FPS need look no further.

You know those games that you remember loving until you go back and play them years later? American McGee's Alice is the posterchild for those games.

Taking characters and settings from Lewis Carroll's beloved tales, McGee put a twisted, macabre spin on it - not unlike Tim Burton's gothic versions of other people's work - and made a psychological horror action-platformer sequel of sorts. Artistically, the game is brilliant. Ironically, it's far better than Burton's take on the material more than a decade later. As a game, it's more frustrating than fun.

In my recent review for Deadly Premonition, I noted that games should not be reviewed solely on their technical merits, but on their artistic vision as well. In that regard, Alice excels. Using id Software's Quake III engine, Alice looked haunting and surrealistically beautiful in 2000. The HD re-release, which was bundled with copies of the long-awaited sequel Alice: Madness Returns, still looks very good. The higher resolution has given the otherworldly look of Wonderland and its vastly different areas a facelift, and the lighting is as spectacular as ever. One minor flaw in the HD presentation is the letterboxing cuts off the screen - and not in that way that old people think it does on movies. It legitimately obscures portions that were visible in the original PC release, which results in Alice and other characters being shown from the neck down.

The character models look blocky, of course, but that's to be expected with a game whose source material is 15 years old. Its the creepy interpretations of Carroll's classic characters that still shine through the hardware limitations of the era. The Mad Hatter, for instance, has a sickly green hue to his skin, a bulbous nose, and long, lanky legs just right for squashing things. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, on the other hand, are reimagined as grotesque, overweight thugs. It's all very dark and gloomy, but it fits the tale.

Several years after her original trip down the rabbit hole, Alice lies catatonic in a mental institution - the result of a traumatic event that claimed the lives of both of her parents. Wracked with survivor's guilt, Alice must once again enter Wonderland, overthrow the evil Red Queen, and restore peace in order to heal her own damaged psyche. Along the way, she'll encounter most of the most popular characters from the novels, including a more menacing-looking Cheshire Cat who helps guide her, the Caterpillar, and even Bill McGill, albeit briefly.

The game's soundtrack is suitably moody and wonderful. Composed by Nine Inch Nails member Chris Vrenna, the music is loaded with eerie elements - ticking clocks and chimes, harpsichords that sound like deranged music boxes, and ethereal voices. It's spine-tingling, the way it works in tandem with the game's equally outstanding visuals.

Where Alice falls flat on its face is in its gameplay.

Simply put, the controls are among the most finicky, imprecise, twitchy, and frankly god-awful I've ever experienced. In a game that is 90% jumping, you can see how that might be a problem. Overshooting jumps and falling to your death is common. Not only is it easy to miss a platform entirely, even if you land on it there's no guarantee you won't immediately fall right over the edge as the game attempts to incorporate momentum into your movement. Other times, you'd swear you jumped straight ahead, but the controls decided that you were just a hair off-center and you'll go flying on an angle, like an airball in a basketball game.

The jumping mechanics are fundamentally flawed, if not broken. For short jumps, you can aim using the camera controls and you'll see a silhouette of your feet. Pressing the jump button will make Alice jump to that precise spot. The trouble is that the feet icons don't always appear. It seems to be arbitrary, even when you're standing right next to the rock or ledge you want to jump to. The other problem is that this method certainly does you no good when you need to make a break for it, so you're forced to rely on constant saving and reloading for when you inevitably miss a jump and fall into lava/down a pit/onto spikes.

You cannot build a game so dependent on platform jumping and have such terrible controls. At the default setting, the camera spins wildly with the slightest flick of the analog stick or mouse. Movement is just as over-sensitive. The HD remaster seems to add some semblance of analog control, but it's still near impossible to move forward slowly and carefully, which the game often demands.

The controls are only half of the problem. Cheap enemies are constant. The novelty of fighting Card Guards quickly wears off in the later stages when they gain the ability to shoot explosive projectiles capable of hitting you across the whole screen, where none of you weapons can touch them. Then there are the Boojums, flying banshee-like ghouls whose scream not only damages Alice, but knocks her back. They frequently appear in sections where precise platforming is required, so expect to be knocked into a lot of pits. The final stages of the game are such a brutal assault of enemies, I found myself saving after taking out just one in a group.

Between the bad controls and the barrage of bad guys, Alice becomes a labor of sadistic love or possibly spite. Challenge is all well and good, but it should always be derived from intelligent AI enemies or brilliantly-designed levels that test a player's reflexes, not deaths caused by bad controls or being knocked off a cliff because an enemy swooped in out of nowhere.

At least the boss battles are cool. Most of them are, surprisingly, the easiest parts of the game. Alice has many cool weapons at her disposal, from her simple knife (called the Vorpal Blade), a deck of razor-sharp playing cards, explosive jack-in-the-boxes, dice that summon demons to fight for you, and jacks that home in on your enemies and chip away at their health. Even though most of the battles are little more that circle-strafing around enemies, picking up respawning health power-ups, and spamming the jacks, they're still exciting, tense sequences and, without exception, look great.

McGee's artistic ambition clearly reached further than his team could deliver from a gameplay perspective. As cool as the levels look, few of them are fun to play, even from the game's early stages. I estimate I spent just as much time staring at the Save/Load screen as I did actually playing the game.

And another thing: why does McGee feel the need to attach his name to every game he makes? Nintendo games don't carry a "Shigeru Miyamoto presents..." tagline, and that man made Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, and StarFox (among others). American McGee made a bunch of Doom levels.

It's a shame that Alice has aged so poorly. For more than a decade, I looked back fondly on American McGee's darker take on some of my favorite pieces of literature ever, but now I'm not sure if it just hasn't aged well or if it was always this bad and I was just blinded by the pretty visuals.

American McGee's Alice was completed on a PlayStation 3 with no cheats.

Is that sufficiently stuck in your head? Good. You should whistle it while reading this entire review, because it will give you a good sense of how weird Deadly Premonition is.

Right from the title screen whose music stutters, Deadly Premonition seems like it will be a disaster. As soon as the opening cinematic begins, you'll get a glimpse of its PS2-quality graphics and you'll have premonitions of your own of hideous visuals, terrible audio, sloppy controls, and a lame story. But you'd only be partially correct.

Deadly Premonition currently holds the world record for being the most polarizing video game ever critiqued, which proves two things: 1. Anything can get into the Guinness Book of World Records if the category is obscure enough; and 2. A game should not be judged solely on its technical merits, but on its artistic intent as well.

Originally released on the Xbox 360 in 2010, this enhanced Director's Cut adds slightly improved graphics, a much better camera, and some minor but non-playable plot elements. It's also significantly easier than its frustrating predecessor, allowing the player to focus on the story and not its many broken elements.

Yes, Deadly Premonition is, in many ways, a fundamentally bad game. The graphics are absolutely awful for a game released in 2013, or even 2010 for that matter. Textures are indistinguishable blobs, the scenery flickers so bad with each camera pan that it could trigger seizures, character models are blocky, animate stiffly, and often clip through solid objects in the world, and absolutely nothing is round. Even the lane markers on the road are made of jagged angles instead of natural curves.

The music (see video above) often doesn't suit the tone of the game. That cheerful, catchy whistling tune accompanies discussions about grisly murders in a small town and a tale of a man who raped 800 people. Eight hundred people, just in case you thought that was a typo. Sound effects are almost as brutal as the graphics. Every door in town creaks the same, regardless of what it's made out of. Your footsteps on the rain-soaked streets make an obnoxious noise that resembles neither footsteps nor splashing water. Items appear with an ear-piercing shriek of violins. Only the guns sound halfway decent.

The control isn't entirely awful. One of the additions of the Director's Cut is a fully user-controlled camera, which is also more pulled back from the action than in the original release. You'll occasionally get hung up on minor objects. The cars in this world apparently weren't built to be capable of driving over even the slightest of inclines, however, and come to a dead stop the same as if you'd rammed into a concrete wall. This is especially problematic when the cars are as difficult to keep on the road as these in the first place, thanks to floaty physics. Several control decisions are puzzling as well, such as the addition of useless turn signals and windshield wipers, especially when it requires several button presses just to get to the map while driving. A one-button solution would have been far more intuitive and convenient.

So if Deadly Premonition has so much going against it, why would you be wrong for thinking it's a terrible game? It sure sounds like one, doesn't it? For all its flaws, and there are many I haven't even gotten into yet, the game is elevated by a spectacularly entertaining and engrossing story. It carried me through even the most tedious gameplay segments, dying to know what happens next. There are some pacing issues, especially near the climax, but this is one fantastic story brought to life by some surprisingly capable voice acting.

You play as Special Agent Francis York Morgan, but just call him York. That's what everyone calls him, and you'll know that because he repeats that phrase to everyone he encounters, coupled with shoving his FBI identification in their faces. York has been brought to the town of Greenvale by the news of a murder, and more importantly, evidence that seems to connect it with a series of killings he has been tracking in other locales.

York is one of the FBI's best criminal profilers, thanks to his intuition. Throughout the game, York will openly converse with Zach, his imaginary friend, about everything from the investigation to movies and music they love. Obviously the FBI's screening process has slackened when it comes to the mentally unstable - that is, if you consider a grown man talking to a voice in his head in full view of others unstable. Oh, he's also a serious foodie, and thinks his coffee gives him clues, so just a regular guy, really.

York is just one of the cast of eccentric, unforgettable characters that inhabit Greenvale. There's George, the gruff Sheriff, and his beautiful young deputy Emily. They're about as normal as things get. There's also a middle-aged father who runs a local grocery that is stuck in the "rockin' 80s." There's Thomas, a flamboyant, effeminate deputy, "Roaming" Sigourney, who carries a crockpot with her everywhere she goes and constantly worries about its temperature, and Harry, a mysterious rich old man who wears a gas mask made out of a human skull, and his servant Michael, who speaks in rhymes.

As crazy as all that sounds - and it is, believe me - it all works. The characters are all interesting in their own way, and I wanted to get to know each one as best I could. As York gets deeper into the investigation, and more victims start appearing, he begins to single suspects out. The story does a wonderful job of keeping you engaged, trying to work out who the killer could be. There's the obvious suspects, but they seem too obvious - unless the game is pulling a double-bluff because you'll write them off for that exact reason. Like any good murder mystery, it keeps you guessing right until the end with some clever plot twists. Some of them are fairly obvious, but others I didn't see coming, and I was never disappointed by any of them.

For all the technical foibles and downright outdated graphics and sound, the voice acting is much better than you'd expect. Some of the performances are in line with the mediocrity of the rest of the game's presentation, but York himself is actually superbly acted, and he's a supremely likable character as a result. It truly serves the story to have capable, or at worst passable, voice acting.

The game has a very supernatural vibe to it. Many have likened it to David Lynch's Twin Peaks. From what little I know of the show, it seems an apt comparison, right down to Agent York's penchant for delicious coffee - a clear nod to the show's famously good beverage. It also borrows much from other video games, namely genre classics like Silent Hill and Resident Evil 4, with a decayed, twisted Other World similar to the former, and combat similar to the latter.

As stated earlier, the music is often out of place, making for some unintentional comedy, but there are also some genuinely frightening moments as well. Each murder scene is just gruesome enough, even with the lackluster graphics, that they'll raise the hairs on your neck. The way the ghostly enemies walk bent over backwards is bone-chilling, as are their eerie voices early on. Unfortunately, they repeat the same three or four lines over and over, so by the 200th time you hear them wail, "I see you!" it loses its impact.

I can't say enough good things about the game's plot, even though the final few chapters drag on far longer than was necessary. What holds the game back is just about everything in between.

Deadly Premonition attempts to be an open-world horror game - sort of Grand Theft Auto meets Silent Hill - but comes up short of either game. Many of the game's events occur at scripted times, requiring you to reach a marker within a window that can be anywhere from an hour to half a day. In your free time, you're allowed to explore, but the problem is there just isn't that much to see. For some reason, most of the businesses are closed, even in the middle of the day, unless you have a story-related reason to go there. Early on, it's explained that businesses and even the schools close when it rains - a superstition brought on by the legend of the Raincoat Killer from the 1950s - but even on sunny afternoons the bars were closed. How does a town survive economically if nothing is ever open?

Most of the buildings are just facades anyway. You're only able to enter a small handful of shops. In the meantime, you can drive around and look for human remains scattered on back roads, or collect trading cards floating around town. Or, more likely, you'll drive to where you need to be and stand around for a while until the game lets you proceed.

You see, Deadly Premonition has no wait feature. Though the clock is accelerated, it's not quite three times the speed of real-time, so one minute in the real world equals about two and a half in-game. York can nap if he can find a place to bed down, but the shortest length of time you can do so is three hours, so if you need to be somewhere in two hours you have no choice but to kill time. Several times during the game I simply set my controller on the floor and did other things. Once I even made and ate dinner, which I'm sure York would have appreciated given his enthusiasm for food, until the town's clock chimed to let me know another hour had passed.

Another issue is there seems to be no fast-travel system by default. You can unlock one, but without it you'll need to drive or walk all over. With distances over 4,000 yards, this can sometimes require five to ten real world minutes of excruciatingly tedious driving. You can occasionally chat with Zach about movies, and those chats are usually fun to listen to, but it doesn't make up for the fact that it's a huge time sink.

In another attempt to make the game feel more realistic, York must also eat and sleep at regular intervals. A meter in the pause menu will show his current hunger and exhaustion level, and both can be improved by eating random foods you'll find lying about. See that cherry pie in the rotting Other World version of the art gallery? No worries, go ahead and eat it. Coffee, cigarettes, and other stimulants will improve your alertness as well, and luckily York can carry all of these things around in his jacket - which must be changed periodically, or else it will start to stink and attract flies. You can also choose to shave when you find a sink. Failing to do so will cause visible facial hair to grow, but why are there sinks everywhere and why does York just happen to have his shaving kit with him at all times?

An even weirder question is why does York get a bonus for shaving, drinking coffee, changing clothes, and saving his game? As an FBI agent, you're paid handsomely for your work as well as seemingly most minor tasks, but money is largely irrelevant in the game. Later on you can buy some cool weapons for the local gunshop, but many of these can be found in the world with a little effort, while recovery items are so plentiful I just began ignoring them all after a certain point. It's like the developers had a list of ideas, but didn't have the time to fully implement them, and the result is a nuisance instead of an immersive feature.

The game is also rife with glitches. Clipping is one thing, but it's another thing entirely to see a town resident driving his Firebird around town while he sits on thin air outside of the car. Once, I opened a door in the police station and the room beyond had disappeared. I promptly fell through the negative space and had to reload my last save - of which you only get one, by the way. One save slot that you just have to keep overwriting. That's not a glitch, it's by design, and it's a poor design choice.

Even more rampant than the glitches is the slowdown. In a game that looks this ugly, with such low polygon counts and low-res textures, you'd think at least the framerate would be stable in lieu of graphical fidelity. Nope. The game chugs frequently and severely.

Yet, in spite of all its flaws, Deadly Premonition's phenomenal story kept me hooked. I couldn't put it down until the mystery had been solved, and I don't regret a single second of the time I spent with it. I can't ignore the multitude of problems, but I can overlook them when I'm as entertained as I was while playing this utterly weird, unique game. I wholeheartedly recommend you judge for yourself because, while the verdict is still out on the owls, that's some damn fine coffee in Greenvale.

May 31, 2015

Black is a tough game to critique. It's about as generic as they come, with a story that is so forgettable I actually forgot it while playing the game. Yet, in spite of this, I found myself enjoying it far more than I expected.

Criterion Games were best known for their Burnout games - a series of high octane racing games with a heavy emphasis on arcade action, an incredible sense of speed, and spectacular crashes. With Black, they claimed they wanted to do for shooters what they had done for racing. It was a lofty goal, and it wasn't quite met. What we ended up with was a game that pushed the PS2 technology pretty hard, but ultimately failed to reinvent the genre.

Spread across eight missions, you play as Jack Kellar, a member of a special Black Ops squad. That is literally all I can tell you of the story. I know you're hunting down some bad guy for reasons I don't quite remember. The story is told through live action (yes, with real people, not CG) cutscenes in between missions where the camera is zoomed in super-close and some suit is strong-arming the soldier for information.

The meat of the game pushes you along extremely linear paths, shooting and blowing stuff up all nice and pretty like. For its time, Black featured an unprecedented level of destructible environments. Smoke obscures your vision as bullets shatter concrete, structures explode, glass shatters and rains down on enemies. It's all very impressive, even if the textures look ugly by today's standards, with visible seams and low detail.

I suppose it's a trade off for the level of detail put into the game's weapons. The back of the box coins the term "gun porn," and one look at your armaments explains why. Each real-world weapon is crafted with stunning detail, and little details such as the way bullets bounce on the chain as you walk, how the buckle on the Uzi flaps, and the way guns eject spent casings all look fantastic. Reloading even features an awesome depth of field effect where everything but the gun in your hand becomes blurred. Black is all about its guns, and they are indeed a lot of fun to shoot.

You can only carry two weapons at a time, meaning you'll often have to make a tough decision about what to drop and what to keep. Do you let go of your trust shotgun for that sniper rifle with less ammo, but far more stopping power over distance? There's often a strategic advantage to swapping weapons, which is telegraphed by the very fact that there's a rifle or a RPG launcher sitting there. As I said, Black is so linear that if they supply you with one of these weapons, you'd best believe there's a good reason for it.

Along the way you'll encounter a slew of generic enemies, covered head to toe in camouflage. One of the game's many failings is its AI. While it occasionally shows signs of intelligence by flanking you, most of the time they'll stand there and run back and forth while you shoot them. Toss a grenade into a group of enemies and watch as they stand there, patiently waiting to be blown to smithereens. There are no boss enemies, even in the game's final shootout, so to compensate the game just throws a bunch of them at you to mow down. About the most trouble you'll have with them is when the game's targeting decides you weren't dead center and a headshot makes them shrug instead of taking them down.

Black isn't particularly challenging. The final shootout may give you some trouble (it certainly did for me), but pretty much everything up until then will be a cakewalk on the normal difficulty setting. Ammunition is plentiful, as are health packs. Enemies even drop instant-use health kits on Normal, though this luxury is taken away at higher difficulties. It's also convenient just how many exploding red barrels are sitting out in the open. Perhaps enemy militias should keep those stowed away so some American operative doesn't come blowing the place to hell, but what do I know? At least the levels look good though, and it features one of the better examples of a bridge level I've seen in the first-person shooter genre, which are usually the low point of any FPS game.

Control feels a little limiting, however. There is no jump button, and crouching is essentially useless most of the time, especially since the game blocks off strategically advantageous places with invisible walls. See that little nook under the stairs that looks like you can fit in there and pick enemies off? Well too bad, you can't because the game says so.

The audio, much like the visuals, was quite impressive for its time. The game takes advantage of Dolby Pro Logic, which few PS2 games did during gameplay, and each gun is pitched slightly different during firefights so as to create a sort of harmonic sound. The music, performed by a Hollywood symphony orchestra, sounds appropriately cinematic - like something out of a big action movie.

With so much going against it, Black's saving grace is just how much fun it is to play. It may herd you along a specific path, but every battle was extremely engaging. The graphical effects make trading fire intense, since you often can't see exactly where you're aiming, or if enemies are closing in on you. It gives the illusion that the game is more difficult than it really is and keeps you moving from cover point to cover point. One thing the game sorely needed was a lean and shoot mechanic, since cover plays such an important part in your survival.

All things considered, Black was a pretty standard but enjoyable romp through foreign territories. It's short, it's pretty easy, the AI isn't that hot, it's linear...but it's somehow lots of fun. It didn't reinvent the wheel, like Criterion had hoped it would, but it's worth a spin.

May 27, 2015

I have loved beat ‘em ups since the first time I laid eyes on Double Dragon in the arcades. Whether they starred martial arts masters, ninja turtles, superheroes, or popular cartoon characters, the genre has always appealed to me for its simplicity, action, and cooperative gameplay. In an age when most video games were competitive – who could get the highest score, or who could beat the other one up – they were the rare exception where you’d crowd around a machine with several potential strangers and work together to achieve a common goal. They were never very complex. In truth, a lot of them were little more than new graphics painted over the same old gameplay mechanics, but they were fun.

When Capcom’s Final Fight was in arcades, I was a big fan. It built upon the strong foundation laid by the classic Double Dragon but with much flashier graphics and amazing sound and music. It was with much distress that I watched as Capcom ported the game to the Super Nintendo, but not my beloved Genesis. SNES fans would be able to gloat about having Street Fighter II and Final Fight – both arcade mega-hits – on their console. Eventually both games would find their way to Sega’s library – Street Fighter II on the Genesis, and Final Fight on the Sega CD – but until then we Genesis kids had to make do with knock-offs.

Thankfully, Streets of Rage is a superior game to Final Fight in nearly every way.

I still remember buying a loose copy of Streets of Rage from Sarge’s Comics, Cards, and Collectibles, a local shop near my house. At the time, my older brother owned a Genesis and had forbidden me from playing it unless he was present. He must have been under the assumption that his kid brother was a fool, because he hid his power cord when he wasn’t home in a rather obvious box in the most obvious of all hiding places, his own closet. Naturally, when he wasn’t around I would break out the adapter and my secret copy of SoR and bash thugs until he would get off work. Then I’d hide the cord again and he was none the wiser.

Final Fight may look better, with larger, more detailed sprites, but Streets of Rage is a better game by a wide margin. It’s certainly no slouch in the looks department. The animation is stiff and the sprites are considerably smaller, but the backgrounds look fantastic and feature some awesome effects like waves crashing against the shore of a beach, blinking lights in a distant city that scrolls by while you fight on a boat that bounces up and down, and dilapidated city streets where garbage blows through the wind. More importantly, Streets of Rage featured three characters, unlike the SNES version of Final Fight. Not only that, but two players could play cooperatively on the Genesis, while Final Fight SNES was strictly a single player affair.

Each brawler in Streets of Rage had their own moves and different attributes such as speed, power, and jumping ability, much like in Final Fight. A key difference is that Final Fight featured special moves for each fighter, while Streets of Rage opted for a generic assist move where a police car rolls in and fires a bazooka shell that wipes out all enemies on screen. How that car appears on the boat stage, or why the flames don’t burn you, is not important. Players only get one assist per level (barring finding special items that replenish your stash), so use it sparingly. Another key difference is the characters in Streets of Rage all have more standard moves at their disposal, thanks to the ability to vault over an enemy you’ve grappled. There’s a defensive move, should the enemy attempt to throw you, that will allow you to land on your feet without taking and damage, and a reverse attack if thugs try to get the drop on you. Should they succeed, the player can kick their feet out and throw the enemy over their shoulder to escape – a move that is also effective in two player games with your partner.

Like all good beat ‘em ups, you can use a variety of weapons you find handily lying around. Pipes, baseball bats, knives which can be used as melee weapons or throw as projectiles, and bottles that you can smash over your enemies’ heads then proceed to stab them with the shattered remnants are all at your disposal. If you take a beating, you can always take a bite out of an apple or a roast that has been lying under an oil drum in the street to regain health.

If there’s any one aspect of Streets of Rage that people remember more than any other, it’s the music. Composed by the great Yuzo Koshiro, the soundtrack is a compilation of techno, house, and funky dance music that absolutely fits the action. Streets of Rage has, in my opinion, the best score of any 16-bit game (including its sequels). Every level’s theme is a masterpiece, from the booming bass of the first stage to the melodic beach level track, and the thrilling boss battle theme. Even the stage clear and character select music is fantastic. It’s one of the few 16-bit soundtracks I can listen to on my iPod, outside of the context of the game it accompanies, and still absolutely love.

The sound effects aren't quite as good, but they're very serviceable. Many of the effects are recycled from earlier Sega games, notably The Revenge of Shinobi, but they still sound good. Voices are crunchy with static, but they still sound cool in their own way. In fact, the redone voices in the Sega CD version, though much clearer, are inferior and lack the intensity of the kung-fu shouts and enemy screams.

I have beaten Streets of Rage more times than I can count with each of its three characters, but I keep coming back to it. Even with nearly 1,200 games in my backlog, I still took a little time out to replay one of my favorite 16-bit gems. It’s a shame Sega has let this series languish, and even more shameful they had the gall to shut down the fan-made Streets of Rage Remake on PC in lieu of an official sequel (thankfully, after it was released, meaning it can still be found online). I suspect this won’t be the last time I play it either. Final Fight may have the look, but Streets of Rage has it all.